


Day 1: Memory and Longing

by kittening



Series: APH Asia Week 2020 [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Cooking, Gen, Mythology - Freeform, china raising japan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27576458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittening/pseuds/kittening
Summary: While they're cooking together, Kiku asks Yao to tell a story.
Series: APH Asia Week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2015726
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12





	Day 1: Memory and Longing

When the sun fell below the horizon, Wang Yao brought Kiku in from the gardens and set him to work in the kitchen. The child barely reached Yao’s waist, even when he stood on the tips of his toes and insisted he’d grown since the last time they checked, so Yao set him on the counter of the wok stove and gave him cloves of garlic to peel while Yao cut the meat from pork ribs. After putting the pork in to boil, Yao took Kiku outside and let him pick a fresh peach. Kiku wobbled dangerously as he attempted to reach a blushing pink fruit just beyond his grasp, and then yanked it wildly off the tree, delighted, when Yao lowered the branch for him. 

“Will you tell me a story?” Kiku asked, letting juice spill down his chin, then drip onto the front of his clothes. Yao smiled, reaching over to wipe Kiku’s face with his sleeve. 

“An old story, or a new one?” Yao asked, as they settled outside the kitchen to wait. The cool early autumn air was perfumed by the sweet scent of Kiku’s peach as the child snuggled closer. 

“The one you never tell me. Where I came from. My friends say everyone has a mama and baba, but you say the earth is my mama and baba. I don’t think that’s right, though.” 

“Hmm.” Yao paused. He was curious about that, too--while he’d met others like himself and Kiku, whatever they were, the only thing they could be sure of was that they were alive, and the heavens seemed to like them that way. Anything beyond that was unknowable, and ultimately inconsequential. “I would tell you that one if I knew it.” 

Kiku’s tiny nose wrinkled. “What do you mean, you don’t know?” 

“I don’t know everything,” Yao reminded him. “I found you all alone, without any family. I don’t know what happened before that.”

“That doesn’t seem right, either,” Kiku said. “You’re old. Shouldn’t you know things?” 

Yao grimaced. “Alright, listen. I’ll tell you where humans came from; how’s that?”

Kiku took another bite of his peach, mumbling with his mouth full, “If that’s the best you can do...” 

“ _ Ai _ , be respectful. At the beginning of time, there was nothing but chaos. Over eighteen thousand years the chaos formed an egg, and the creature Pangu emerged from it, breaking the yin and yang inside the egg apart. The dark yin became the earth, and the bright yang became the heavens. When Pangu died, his body became all that we see around us; his breath became the wind, his blood the rivers, his skin the grass and trees. The first sovereign, the goddess Nüwa, ruled over her people, who were not humans, for one hundred and eighty thousand years, until a flood from the heavens drowned them all. Together with her brother Fuxi, she ascended Mt. Kunlun and asked the Jade Emperor for his blessing, and he allowed them to breathe life into clay figures to create humanity. That is where humans came from.” 

Kiku tossed his peach pit into the grass. “Did that really happen?”

With a sigh, Yao took Kiku’s sticky hand and walked with him back into the kitchen. “Well, I wasn’t there for it. Do you think it happened differently?” He scooped the boiling water from the wok, and tossed in the spices he’d prepared earlier; garlic, pepper, hawthorn, ginger, and chives. While Yao started to stir-fry the pork, Kiku pulled over a stool and hopped on top of it to peer into the wok. 

“I don’t like Pangu,” Kiku said. Yao looked down at him in shock--he’d been asking a rhetorical question; he never imagined that Kiku would really have his own ideas about the beginning of the world. “I think there were lots of gods. And the brother and sister were called Izanagi and Izanami, and one day they were standing on the rainbow bridge of heaven and Izanagi stuck his spear in the water, and when he pulled it out, there was some dirt on it, and the dirt fell down and made the earth and all the people.” 

Yao stared, his hand going still as the pork continued to sizzle. When was the last time Kiku had disagreed with him on something like this, and come to his own conclusion? Had he ever? It reminded Yao of the truth that he kept buried in the back of his mind--that no matter how long he had cared for Kiku, no matter that he thought of the child as his own little brother, Kiku’s destiny was separate from his. Kiku would grow up one day, would discover his own purpose in this world, and their paths would diverge. If they lived long enough, Kiku might forget that they had ever lived like this, as a family. 

“You’ll make a fine philosopher someday,” Yao said cheerfully, plucking a strip of pork from the wok and popping it into Kiku’s mouth. “Go and start the rice for me, _ xiao fuzi _ . Remember we’re having guests tonight; we need more than usual.” 

“Mm.” Kiku jumped down from the stool and ran across the kitchen. When the child was out of his sight, Yao shut his eyes for a moment, exhaling deeply. There was no use in thinking like that. Compared to a human, Yao was incredibly lucky--they lived peacefully, without worry of illness or death, and they had more time than a mortal could ever dream of. The future he dreaded was still lifetimes away. 

“Kiku,” Yao said, keeping his voice casual. “When you get older, what do you want to do?”

“Hm?” Kiku sounded confused. “When I’m a grown-up?” 

“You could explore the Middle Kingdom, or the islands to the east, or even farther. You could become an artist, or a scholar. Work for the emperor, perhaps. Like I’ve told you before, there are others like us out there--you might like to meet them.” 

Kiku appeared at Yao’s side, looking up at him with furrowed brows. “I don’t want to do any of that. I like it here with you.” 

Yao let out a laugh in surprise. For all the complaining the child liked to do, he wouldn’t have expected an answer like that. “You do?”

“Not all the time,” Kiku amended. “But you’re nice to me. You teach me things, and let me play with my friends, and your cooking tastes good. Why would I go somewhere else?” With that, Kiku hurried off once again to wash the rice, and Yao smiled, stirring the pork absent-mindedly. 

It wouldn’t last forever, but for now, Yao was happy. 

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been watching a lot of Li Ziqi and listening to the History of China podcast l o l  
> Yao calls Kiku 小夫子 or ‘little master’, borrowed from 孔夫子 (Master Kong, Confucius in Chinese)  
> Fun fact, the pairs of siblings mentioned here are also married in their myths. Don’t like that tbh. Please let me know if I made any mistakes wrt the mythology--I did research (and it seems like there are countless versions of these myths) but I’m not Chinese or Japanese so oof.


End file.
